The Scarpetta Post-Mortem

Dave 0:09 This is the Extra Extra Hot Great Podcast, episode 400 for the March 14th, 2026 weekend. I am queasy cop with braces, David T. Cole, and I'm here with Tennessee Williams Scholar, Tara Ariano. Tara 0:30 I looked it up and he is! Tara 0:44 Welcome to Extra Extra Hot Great for another weekend. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you, new members. We're thrilled to have you here. We're sorry. It's to discuss Scarpetta, in which we see the following. As she never thought she would do, Kay Scarpetta, played by Nicole Kidman, has returned to the post of medical examiner in her Virginia hometown at the express request of the governor. She's already uncomfortable having her predecessor appointed health commissioner, making him her boss, even before he gives her the gift of his weird former assistant. Kay also has to deal with a dead body before she's even officially sworn in, a body that connects to a case we also watch her work 28 years ago. Show's based on a series of novels by Patricia Cornwell. It's been adapted by former Barry and Deadwood producer Liz Sarnoff. All eight episodes of season one dropped on Prime Video March 11th. In theory, we might talk about events for many of them. Let's do the Chen check-in. Dave, should our listeners watch Scarpetta? I don't have time for your little baby shenanigans. I agree. If it's the kind of thing you like, then you'll like this. It's very average, except also overstuffed in a strange way. So not for me. Let's get into it. I don't have a lot of compliments for this show. I will, however, give credit to Rose McKeown, who plays Kay when she's young. She's captured a lot of Nicole Kidman's physicality. I think she does a nice job. Dave 2:14 Yeah, I thought she was the best part of this show, that is, unless you're incredibly hard up for a mystery fix, give it a pass. Tara 2:22 Yes, it's so busy. I assume showrunners are getting awful notes about capturing the viewer's attention in the first six-tenths of a second, but this pilot is trying to do... too much. Dave 2:35 Yeah. So it's based on a series of airport mystery books. And this is the combination of the first one, which I assume then is the past case. Tara 2:45 Right. Dave 2:45 And then it combines the events of a years and years later novel that is a relook at the case of the first one. So actually this first season is a combination of those two novels that address the same base case. Tara 3:00 Right. Dave 3:00 It wasn't one novel that was set up like this. It was actually two novels in the series. So that might account for its overloaded and stuffiness. And by that, I mean bread inside of a turkey. Tara 3:12 Yeah. It would be enough to establish the parallel murder cases from the present and 28 years ago, but introducing all of her family members on top of that and not being totally clear who's related to whom and how and whose murder was the one that was formative for Kay is so confusing. Dave 3:31 Yeah, it's like, it was like, what was that show that decided to like skip around in the time? Was it Witcher that decided to skip around in the timeline without saying anything about it? Tara 3:42 Yes. Dave 3:42 Even without visual cues or anything. And it was just like, are you trying to be arty or you just not know how the visual medium works? Not that bad here, but certainly I was confused as well. And it didn't seem like one of those, just let it breathe and people will get it in the fullness of time as we lazily float down the river that is Scarpetta plot. That didn't really happen. Like, let the mystery be the show for this kind of thing. I absolutely am not interested when it's like, and then what's going on at her house? Who gives a shit? Unless her husband's murdering people left and right. Don't care. she is a chief medical examiner that should be enough mm-hmm She goes home at night and sometimes dinner is waiting for her. Sometimes they order pizza and it's all I care about. I don't want all this other shit around it because it's boring. It's padding. That's not what you come into a murder mystery for. Tara 4:38 Yeah. Dave 4:39 I mean, I think anyways, people do, but they're weird. Tara 4:42 Yeah. They are weird. Do better. Those people. Dave 4:47 Dave just made up watching TV wrong. Tara 4:50 Yeah. I can see how that sort of stuff would be compelling in a book. Like when you have to flesh out, it can't just be, and then I got to work and then I went home next day, then I got to work again. Like, I understand that, but a show doesn't have to cover absolutely everything. And if you have an Anson Mount in reserve, don't wait until the last two seconds of your premiere to introduce him, get to him faster. We want to see Anson Mount. We want to summit Anson Mount, right? Dave 5:18 Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Tara 5:19 Speaking of the family, though, I did not think Jamie Lee Curtis could play a character on TV that was more grating than Donna in The Bear. But Dorothy Farinelli on Scarpetta has really opened my eyes to how irritating Jamie Lee Curtis can be. Dave 5:35 Quiet, quiet, quiet. Tara 5:37 Pan. She's introduced having a fight with Kay at the edge of a cemetery while Dorothy's daughter is sitting on her wife's grave talking to it. And they're so obnoxious that the daughter, whose name is Lucy, she's played by Ariana DeBose, has to turn around and tell them to shut up and be respectful. Dave 5:59 Do they make gravestones like that? It looks like the monolith from 2001. Tara 6:02 I don't know. Okay, the director of the first episode is David Gordon Green, who's one of the executive producers of The Righteous Gemstones. He also worked on the Halloween, the newer Halloween movie, so I assume that's the Jamie Lee Curtis connection. Dave 6:15 Oh, okay. Tara 6:15 Because she's in those two. But like with him and someone who worked on Barry and Deadwood, honestly, Deadwood, not a comedy, but a funny show. I expected there to be more dark comedy, kind of leavening this necessarily dark premise of a show. And I feel like Dorothy is it. They were they developed that character and was like, well, she can do all the kooky stuff. That's fine. And everyone else can be do her all the time. Dave 6:39 Kooky or just loud? Tara 6:41 Well, kooky, loud, possibly borderline personality disorder. I mean, who knows? Dave 6:46 I mean, she wears Christmas ornament earrings that light up. I guess that's kooky, but I wouldn't call her comedy relief. Tara 6:53 Well, that's what I'm saying. Dave 6:55 I know, but I'm just saying as written, she just seems to be like the cringe lover, much like she was in The Bear. Like, it's not that far of a walk from her character from The Bear to this. I thought it was very similar. And the other thing about just the trappings of it, the setup, is at the start of it, Nicole Kimmon is going back to being chief medical examiner. And they're treating it like she's going up against the incumbent for governor or something like that. Like chief medical examiner is this giant political mess that you have to wade into and fight that fight. It's like they're trying to good wife up chief medical examiner as a position. And so I was like, is that the way it is? Because I know it's like an appointment or an election, elected. Tara 7:36 I don't think you get elected chief medical officer. I think you're appointed. Dave 7:40 Anyways. So I'm like, is this a big political deal? Capital P, capital D. So I was like, all right, I know who to ask. So I texted Sarah and I said, is this right? Does this track that there is all this sort of intrigue and machinations around chief medical examiner? She said, no, generally not. But Scarpetta's idea of Scarpetta's importance does not track with real life. That's a quote. So I said, can I spoil the season for you? And she said, I wouldn't wash that shit with a pair of tongs. So go ahead. So it's like, Sarah's still here. Tara 8:14 Hi, Sarah. Dave 8:15 Hi. Anyways, I thought that was strange that they're wanted to put in again on top of everything else. And we've got the home life. We've got the actual job and the mystery. But then we also have this political angle too. And it's like, you gotta pick one lane. And if you really must, two, but not three. Tara 8:34 Sure. Well, do you want to spoil the endings? Dave 8:36 I certainly can. Let me do an official spoiler here. All right. Spoilers. Ahoy. Fun. No, wait. Tara 8:47 Spoilers. Ahoy. I forgot to. Dave 8:49 Spoilers. Ahoy. Fun. Ahoy. That's how it goes after three minutes of deliberation. Tara 8:55 Yep. Dave 8:55 That's been edited out. So at the beginning of the show, at the first relevant crime scene, she's walking into this nice house and there's a queasy rookie cop at the door who just can't handle it all. Yuck. And then they go on with the show. And in the last episode, it was like, oh, I saw that one day. And I was like, yeah, killing is a life for me. And I was like, what the fuck? I mean, that's one of two murders in the script because there's like old murder, new murder. Right. So he was like, mmm, killing. Tara 9:26 Okay. Is it supposed to be a surprise that the rookie cop and the new cop played by David Hornby from the rickety cricket from It's Always Sunny? Is it supposed to be a surprise that they're the same guy? Because they both have adult braces. Dave 9:39 Yeah. No, no, no. Tara 9:40 And fucking David Hornby still has adult braces 28 years later. Dave 9:44 I should have said rookie cop. That was a misnomer. He is just a green cop list. Still, after whatever years he's been in the forest. Tara 9:52 Yeah, he's had braces for almost three decades. It's not how grand a braces works. Dave 9:56 What did he start off with? It was like the big book of British teeth from The Simpsons. Tara 10:01 I don't know. But it's also like once you introduce that guy, he's not famous. I don't think most people know his name. But when you see his face, you know he's not just cast to, like, be a guy in this show. Obviously, he's going to have some kind of greater import. Dave 10:17 That Glenn Close, she's up to something. Tara 10:19 Sure. But you know what I mean. He's, like, he's recognizable. Dave 10:24 Yeah, absolutely. It's that lesser version of the law and order problem where it's the very special guest star. And it's like, and now here comes Pierce Brosnan or whatever. It's like, well, he probably didn't do it. He's probably just ordering a coffee. That's the last we'll see of him. It's got a bit of that to it. So when I got there, I was like, OK, I mean, yeah, that's. person we know. And yes, they didn't have a lot to do. But also this feels like that second or third episode red herring that you pitch at the viewer and then we're on to the rest of the show because that obviously wasn't it because I know how TV works and there's eight episodes. But this one was just like bookended by here I am. For the most part, but they don't really develop that. It's not a bonkers ending. Dave 11:08 If there is no sense to it. It just seemed like I've been in hibernation and now I'm back and I love killing and you didn't figure it out. And here I am. I'm in your house trying to strangle you. Tara 11:19 Yeah. She kills him with the baseball bat that was like the Chekhov's baseball bat also from the first episode that she just like has it in a corner of her office. Dave 11:28 Yeah. Tara 11:29 Okay. Sure. Dave 11:29 She loves baseball. Tara 11:31 I guess. Apparently the big storyline, sorry to get back to the family stuff, but for Lucy, who is Kay's niece, she's a genius coder who made as much money by the time she was 13 as she would ever need, apparently, is she's grieving her dead wife, Janet, who's played by Janet Montgomery, and she's getting through it by talking to an AI version of Janet, a worrying amount, like enough that it's a topic of conversation for several different family members who think it's weird. You know, I heard whiffs about an AI girlfriend storyline that by becoming to TV this year, this is not what I thought it would be. Dave 12:08 Yeah, I'm no Superman. Tara 12:10 It's so dumb. I don't love them just taping Janet Montgomery's halves of their conversation because it makes the AI look too real. Like this is clearly the actress just being in this. Dave 12:21 Sure, sure. Tara 12:21 But I also don't want them to use AI to make an AI Janet Montgomery. So there's no good way to do this. Like maybe don't do that. This was already a black mirror episode. Like, 13 years ago. Dave 12:33 This should go back to how Hollywood imagined computers were before they got super fancy, which is if you need a computer screen, you just film it normally and slightly pixelate it as if that's how computers work. Tara 12:44 Yeah. Dave 12:44 Go back to that. All right. Last question for you, Tara. Scarpetta. Tara 12:48 Right. Dave 12:49 Ham or cheese? Tara 12:50 I would say ham. Dave 12:51 Incorrect. Tara 12:52 Oh. Dave 12:52 It's a pasta shape. Tara 12:54 Oh. Dave 12:54 Want to guess the shape? Tara 12:56 Shaped like Nicole Kidman's weird lips. Dave 12:58 Oh, close. Her old nose. Tara 13:02 I think that's still her same nose. Dave 13:04 I don't think so. It's angular. It looks like a stealth fighter jet. That's why when Nicole Kidman comes into your house, you think, oh, is that the ghoul from Fallout? Tara 13:17 Because I can't see your nose. Dave 13:27 Here's her nose. Tara 13:29 Boop. Dave 13:30 Hey, booped her nose. All right, it is time for Ask EHG. Let's spin the Wheel of Judgment. Tara will be your judge this week. Tara 13:45 Hello. Dave 13:46 Hi. Tara 13:46 Our question came from Raphael. Raphael wrote, following the recent deployment of the supposed to be cute, but is actually terrible and annoying character nicknamed Bundle on the seven dials. I want to know what character nickname makes you the most annoyed. I just want to say that's not a, I doubt that's a TV choice. I think that's probably from the book. Isn't seven dials an Agatha Christie thing? Dave 14:10 Yeah, it is. I don't know anything about Agatha Christie, so I don't know if it's from the greater Agatha Christie cinematic universe and they're making shit up or if that's an actual source material. Tara 14:19 Right, right. Dave 14:19 I don't know. Tara 14:20 Anyway, I have a few runners up. Dave 14:22 We're about to get angry letters. Madam was all Caroline about this. Tara 14:26 Sorry. A few runners up on this one. L and F. I was never a fan of Logan calling Rory Ace on Gilmore Girls. I agree. It did seem patronizing and honestly should have been because she was bad at journalism, but still. Dave 14:40 Ah, okay. Ace really sounds like it's part of the family of names. I got called at the gas station when I worked there in high school. Chief, all that kind of stuff. Ace. Tara 14:49 Sounds familiar. It can be, but in this case, it's, you know. I get it. Dave 14:52 Reporter. Tara 14:53 An ace reporter. Monty writes, I am aware of its provenance from the original book in the movie, but calling Major Margaret Houlihan hot lips was some straight up bullshit. True. True. L.T. I always thought the nickname Buffy was so stupid, and I'm not saying that's why I refused to watch the show, but it didn't help. Then I Googled to find out what her real name was, only to learn it is actually just Buffy. W.T.F. Buffy is not supposed to be a person's actual name. True. But our winner is Mike McComb, who writes, the idea that Lucille Bluth would ever respond to Gangie or however it's spelled. Never rang true to me. I agree. I don't think Lucille Bluth is like the cutesy, you know, call me Glamaw type. Dave 15:41 No, she wants to stay away from emotional output as much as possible. Tara 15:44 Right. I would assume she would want them to call her Lucille or Mrs. Bluth over Gangie. Dave 15:50 Yeah. Tara 15:51 Mike, contact Dave. DM him on the Discord to get your stickers. Maybe one of the things we do over our upcoming break is get some new stickers. I think it's been a while, probably. Dave 16:03 Yeah, maybe. Exciting show update. You remember recently we had an answer from Sweet Pea Pink, but her son, who's answering the question about how a TV show would be different, was filmed upside down. And she didn't say what he said. So we said, if you wrote back and gave me an explanation, I would send you those stickers. Well, she did. And here it is. It's a normal episode of Veronica Mars, but it's all upside down. Sips of water go straight up, hair hanging away from face but no one acknowledges it the next episode they go back to normal, that's okay that's great all right so that was worthy of a sticker so uh that is going out to you let's get into your questions first one from kerfuffler do you like when crime shows reveal what happened at the beginning like colombo or would you rather only know what the detective knows all right so this is uh whodunits versus how catch them's I like Columbo a lot. I like the How Ketchum format more so than your whodunits, at least on television. Tara 17:02 Yeah. Dave 17:03 Because either it's too short or they want to do an eight part too long. And two hours is nice. When it's a good mystery, like Knives Out, then I'm here for it. But generally speaking, I think television makes better How Ketchums. Tara 17:15 Yeah. I think it depends on the detective, which is probably why shows like Columbo and Poker Face are less common than regular ass procedurals. You know, a show like that really rests on how charismatic the lead character is. And I think you can get away with more if it's just a like one episode and done. Here's the mystery. We're going to show you the clues as we go. Dave 17:37 Yeah. Also, part of it is I don't really care to try to solve the mystery as it's happening. I'm fine just to be there and let it wash over so I don't engage with the mystery show in that capacity. I'm not an armchair Sherlock Holmes. So that part of it plays into it as well. Fandi has our next question. What, if anything, do you think it says about our society that Fallout, Paradise, and Silo are all active series at this time? Tara 18:01 Well, I think it's less what it says about society than about TV creators. I think creating dramatic stakes and tension is easier in a dystopia like those than in a more utopian post-scarcity context like Star Trek style. It also, I think, takes less imagination to be a doomer than an optimist. So that would be my answer, Dave. Dave 18:23 My answer is that people are hungry for a less bleak, simpler world. So they look towards your fallouts and your silos. Tara 18:32 Uh-huh. Dave 18:32 Jovial gent, if you had to live in a land that is entirely made out of one food, what kind of food would it be? Hmm. I'm going to the land of roasted vegetables. Your Brussels sprouts, carrots, onions, potatoes. I could do that. If the judges say that is one kind of food. Roasted food. Tara 18:55 Right. Dave 18:56 Okay. I will accept that that is in fact four different things. But I'm going to eat them anyways. Tara 19:02 Okay. Corn. You can make so many things out of corn. Dave 19:05 Oh, I thought you said porn. Tara 19:06 No. I don't want to eat corn. Dave 19:10 Yeah. And with an E, you work for Kraft and get to pitch the next fun shape of their macaroni noodles. Inspired by a TV show, though. Which show do you choose and what are the shapes? Tara? Tara 19:36 I'm going to make balloons and yoga balls because Bluey has canonically played with both of those in Bluey. And I'm going to put Bluey on the box and that's going to make the Bluey mac and cheese the most successful licensed food product of the year. Dave? Dave 19:51 Did you look up if there's actually a Bluey mac and cheese? Because I... With money down that probably already exists. While you do that, I will give mine. My proposal wins over Tara's because mine doesn't have to revamp the factory to make inanimate carbon rods and cheese. Bluey mac and cheese, yes, no? Tara 20:11 There is a recipe for protein mac and cheese with Bush's bluey baked beans, but I am not seeing a specific bluey mac and cheese. Dave 20:20 All right, then we accept your proposal. Damon, Tara, for International Wig Day, you as a wig cop get to spend 24 hours with one of these wigs. Chief Wiggum, Ralph Wiggum, Shea Wiggum. Who do you pick and why? Tara 20:33 I don't think I could manage more than 10 minutes of conversation with any of those other than Shea Wiggum. I think spending a day with Chief or Ralph Wiggum would be extremely frustrating. So it's a bonus that Shea Wiggum seems interesting, or at least that he has good taste. We could spend a lot of that time talking about Perry Mason, and I at least would be perfectly happy with that. Dave 20:55 Elsbeth, what fashion trends would you like to see come back? Tara, fashion trends, they're back and you're wearing them. Tara 21:00 Yeah, I really had a hard time with this one. Everything I could think of from my formative years, like put a flannel around your waist, wear a chunky sandal, put jean shorts over tights, all feel like they would be fine to wear today. The only thing I could think of was like, you don't see as many giant all over prints, floral prints or paisleys or something as you did in the late 60s and early 70s. Those are usually the garments that I'm most drawn to when I watch Call the Midway, for example, which has arrived at, I think, 1971. Anyway, I wish I could find more of those in skirts and shorts. I know I'm not going to learn to sew, so don't tell me that. Dave? Dave 21:35 Well, we mentioned bucket hats recently. I did used to love a bucket hat. Add to that desert boots. Is that what you call them? Tara 21:43 Desert boots? Dave 21:44 With the really shoes, and they offer absolutely no support, but I really like them. So desert boots can come back. Oh, also, not that I ever wore it, but I would like to see people walking around again with those white tennis visors with the green see-through plastic bit. Tara 21:58 Yeah. Dave 21:59 Let's bring those back. Tara 22:00 Okay. Dave 22:00 Okay. Kimba for Dave. Would you rather continue as a permanent co-host of Again With Them or recap the additional and fictional 10 seasons of the Goop Lab? I actually didn't write down an answer for this because I just typed in, oh, God, and then forgot to come back to it because I don't think I did. Tara 22:17 Want to? Dave 22:20 I mean... I would like to think that, again, with them has a limited shelf life, that when they are done recapping the show, they will disband and not do anything. But I don't know what their financial circumstances are. If they really want to continue the getting paid by iHeartRadio decent money, maybe they'll find something else to talk about. Certainly, they both have seven other podcasts they do besides 902 and OMG. So as much as I like to think that is finite, it actually could be infinite. Tara 22:50 Yeah. Dave 22:50 And 10 seasons of the Goop Lab sounds like a lot. So that's probably like 40 episodes. Tara 22:56 Yeah, four or six. Yeah. Dave 22:57 So 40 to 60 episodes of that. I had more fun ripping apart Goop Lab than I had fun ripping apart those two. So I'm going to go with Goop Lab on this in that very may God have mercy on my soul sort of way. Tara 23:11 Well, the difference is like the Goop Lab, at least these are adults who are affirmatively making the decisions to be crackpots about this stuff. Like the whole impetus of Jenny and Tori being on their own podcast initially, at least the first one that they did, OMG, is based on decisions they made when they were like children and their brains weren't fully formed. Are they fully formed now? Who knows? But that's the difference. Like you can give them a little more grace. It's it sometimes feels bad to make fun of them. Goop lab people, whatever. Dave 23:40 Radish Cake has our next question. Who sings the appropriate segue diddy? Yeah. We haven't played in a while because we have segment stingers for almost every segment these days. But I do like that as well. I don't know exactly who's saying that. I had Kirk Hamilton do all those little stings once upon a time for many of our stuff like Game Time and the Is This Worse and Jazz and all that that you hear. And he ropes somebody into it. So Kirk Hamilton's friend, I'm going to guess. Dan Casino asks, fuck, marry, kill, resurrect social media sites. First of all, I just can't with social media anymore. I had to stop, except for a private Discord, but even there's a couple channels that I've had to mute. Yep. Fuck. Flickr. Remember Flickr? Tara 24:31 Still around. Dave 24:32 Marry MySpace. I think technically it's still around. KillX. And resurrect, I'm going to save just on the crazy chance that we pick the same one, which would make me very happy. So you go through yours and we're going to say our resurrect at the same time. OK, go ahead. Tara 24:49 I'm going to say fuck TikTok because I'm generally fine with the ones that make their way to me outside the app. I have deleted the app and my account. I guess Mary Blue Sky, since it's the only one that I'm on still, I've ever been our Discord. Obviously, I would kill Twitter. I refuse to call it X. Sorry. I know that's it's been two years. But it's so stupid that it's called X. And Resurrect, I'm going to guess. I have a guess for what yours is because it's not what I picked. Dave 25:15 Okay. Tara 25:16 Is it Plurk? Dave 25:17 It's Plurk. If you remember Plurk, wow. Tara 25:22 Yeah. Dave 25:23 What a stupid concept that was. Tara 25:25 What a moment. Yeah. It's the real life woof. Dave 25:28 It was like, what if Twitter or texting, but on a continuously moving timeline? Tara 25:33 Mm-hmm. God. Anyway, my actual resurrect is Instagram before it was bought by Facebook, which like I wasn't on Instagram then. But like the reason I'm not on Instagram now is because of the Meta Corporation. Dave 25:47 There's no good way to just share photos anymore. I mean, like actual photos. That's why I said Flickr, because that's like the closest thing that sort of still exists, but nobody goes there anymore. That's like photographers showing other photographers. Tara 25:59 Yeah. Dave 25:59 Pictures. And like Instagram used to be that for a hot second. And then now it's all just video and nobody really cares about the actual photography on Instagram, which is ironic. Diatho, a.k.a. Death, in the vein of Fuck, Marry, Kill, who would you ride cross country with in a plane, in a train and in an automobile? Wait, Drs. Benton, Green and Lewis from ER are your choices. Season one version of those characters. Tara 26:26 For the plane, I'm going to go with Green. He is an exhausted resident at this stage of the show, and he's going to spend that flight sleeping. He's going to be so relieved to be away from his awful wife and child that he's just going to conk out. He will not be trying to talk to me at all. Train. Benton seems like he wants to make friends with me as little as I do him. He's also going to be quiet, but will be pleasant if I'm like, oh, excuse me. He, you know, will move. Automobile. I'm going with Louis. she would be the most engaging person to be in that vehicle with for days and days, in my opinion. Dave. Dave 26:59 I put Benton on the plane for much the same reason as you're talking about, but I figured the plane is the least amount of time. So I put Green in the train, and if he's that disillusioned with his life, then he has even longer to nap and relax on the train. And also then for me, if I get annoyed with him for being so huffy and down with life, if I can escape to the dining car. And then also for automobile, I had Lewis, probably the most agreeable or at least the least annoying of those three. Tara 27:31 Agree, yeah. Dave 27:32 C-Kent has our last question. Are you, one, wake up, brush your teeth and have breakfast and then brush your teeth again, people? Or are you, two, wake up, have breakfast, brush your teeth, people? As long as there's no follow-up questions, yes. Tara 27:45 Time. It depends on the day, but if I'm not going anywhere... Dave 27:50 Oh, shit. Tara 27:51 What? Dave 27:51 One of my teeth just fell out. Tara 27:54 If I'm not going anywhere, I usually eat and then brush my teeth. Dave 27:58 Great. Elsbeth has your Ask Ask EASG question to answer in our Discord, or you can email me david at cole.fyi. Put myself out there, guys. Fill in the blank. DTF equals David the blank. Tara 28:12 Oh, boy. Dave 28:12 Fill in the blank. Put it on Discord. Remember, I have feelings, and then we'll be back soon with judgment. Technically, the food thing is still open. and I forgot to close it. Tara 28:22 Mm-hmm. Dave 28:28 It is time for the Tiny Cannon presenting this week. It is Sean. Sean, take it away. Hi, Extra Hot Great. This is Sean, and I'm submitting for the tiny commercial parody cannon Totino's. Tara 29:03 There's only one thing I know about. Feeding my hungry guys. In the third and final iteration, she is once again serving her hungry guys while. Tara 30:33 Think it should be admitted for the tiny commercial parody canon. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sean. This was delightful. I also think this series of commercial parodies is very witty and that they've done interesting things with each different one of them. This is for sure the best one. It has so many good lines. What's your name? I've never had one. Amazing. The fact that the sexy lesbian is named Sabine. As we often say, would love to know which names were rejected before they landed on that one, because it's so perfectly mysteriously sexy. It's great. The montage of them dancing and smoking and sketching Sabine holding a Totino pizza roll is great. Switching to French for no reason, also great. At one point, the shots changes and we see the guys are still in the foreground watching the game. We don't hear them like yelling at the TV while we're watching the women, but they are like just fooling around behind the guys who are totally oblivious, which adds, you know, another dimension to the joke here. Dave 31:33 Yeah, because it goes from the French film filter back to the harsh lighting and they're making out on the kitchen table, like in the background. Tara 31:39 Yeah everybody. Dave 31:40 Else is shouting yeah it was a great scene. Tara 31:42 Yeah you are my totino brilliant i mean i i hope totinos appreciates everything they've done to promote this brand in like ridiculous but affectionate ways i agree with sean the culmination of the series with with this take. Dave 31:58 They're all great. This is the best, but I really like the X-Files one, too. Well, the one that turns out to be about the X-Files. All the guys are just talking about touchdowns and then, ah, fumble. And then she notices it's a pattern that's going way too fast for an actual football game. And then you actually get the reverse camera shot where they're all just watching a TV that's absolutely turned off. And then they turn towards her and they all have black oil eyes and then spam. It's actually an ad for the X-Files. It was so stupid. I actually enjoyed that one quite a bit as well. The one that we're talking about, though, is the only one of the three that I thought made good use of the time that they allotted to it. Like that one never felt it was flagging, mostly because the whole setup where they're doing the sexy time needs time to play out in order to be as effective. Things Going Too Long is the Achilles heel of Saturday Night Live. There are so many near classics that could have been classics if they just trimmed them, but that's not the economics of that show. And this one really works in that regard. My actual favorite part of this one, and I guess all of them, is just the way she delivers hungry guys. Tara 33:06 My hungry guys. Dave 33:08 Absolutely perfect about that delivery, sort of the worn down, domesticated way that she says that her half dead eyes throughout all of them that she employs is really great. The only problem I have with this one, and again, it's one of the things that Saturday Night Live likes to do. And I think it's actually a problem with most sketch stuff if you watch enough of them. The exception, I'm going to say, is Key and Peele. Key and Peele did two things right. They never really lingered on a skit like Saturday Night Live does. And they never tried to overstuff the ending of a skit. There are like all these audio sweeteners at the end of this. You can kind of hear it in the last clip where like the thing is over and it's great. And you sold it and they put a cap on it. There's that little Testino sort of like con film festival treatment at the end. And then like you can hear the guy like say three or four things again from the living room. It's just like, ooh, take that out. That was like it was such a good ending. And then you had to like more little jokes that we've already heard throughout it. The payoff wasn't there for that. So that's like the only niggle I have with this put this to the vote Tara Arianna what say you I say yay me too so Testino pizza rolls from Saturday Night Live you are hereby inducted into the extra-hot great tiny commercial parody cannon. Dave 34:35 It is time to discover who are our not-quite-winners and not-quite-losers of the week. I will go first. Our not-quite-winner is Jake Johnson's P.I. comedy, now adding Keith David. Tara 34:47 Yes. Dave 34:48 You guys just never stops working. Fresh off Duster. Tara 34:51 Yep. Dave 34:52 R.I.P. Duster. Tara 34:52 And the lowdown. Dave 34:53 He's going to be playing Gardner Taggart. Tara 34:56 Sure. Dave 34:56 I was like, that's a really weird name. And I kind of realized maybe Gardner is from James Gardner because that's Rockford P.I. Tara 35:02 Gardner? Oh, no, it's Garner. Yeah, same as James Garner, so yes. Dave 35:08 And then I discovered that Taggart is a 25-season detective show from Scotland. Tara 35:14 Oh. Dave 35:15 So maybe it is those two names put together. Tara 35:17 Seems like it. Dave 35:18 Yeah, perhaps. Not quite loser of the week as Meghan Markle at all, losing Netflix as an investor in her lifestyle brand as ever. And let me just say, this all seems very earned because her stuff that I was exposed to on Netflix was terrible and derivative and did not deserve oodles and oodles of dump truck money. Tara 35:39 Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm sure Netflix was like, yeah, we'll give you money to scale up your business. And they were like, oh, you've still only made 17 jars of your jam. I'm not sure we need to continue. Dave 35:49 She forgot to have a factory involved. She was making herself at home with her garden huckleberries. Tara 35:55 Mm-hmm. My not quite winner of the week is SNL UK. It is premiering later this month, and they've already announced that they have a streaming partner in the U.S., which is Peacock. This is very smart. I think Taskmaster on YouTube has, same day, has really opened the door for more of these shows to find legitimate ways for fans outside of Britain to find and watch them. I think there are probably people who would have found, wink, wink, SNL UK if it was not streaming legitimately. So this is a smart way to take a buzzy show and extend the buzz as well. Tara 36:30 My not-quite-loser of the week is Hasbro, whose CEO Chris Cox was asked about producing the tie-in Harry Potter shows, given, you know, J.K. Rowling being a virulent transphobe, and Cox said, they separate the art from the artist. Translation, we want to keep making money, and we're hoping people generally don't know about this or don't care. Sidebar, also sub-loser Paul Bettany, who was rumored this week to have been cast as Voldemort in the HBO show. And his response to that was to say, he's a big fan of Harry Potter, so I guess he's in the category of people who don't know about all this business and don't care. And it just reminded me of a recent episode of Off Menu when they had John Early on, and he was just talking about what it must be like to be one of these people who know they're about to be announced to be on the show and are just hoping like, oh, they hope no one gets mad at me. What am I going to say? Like, and it's true. All of these people are flops and they should know better. And if your real answer is just, well, I wanted to make money and have a secure job, I guess say that instead of trying to go through contortions to justify what is ultimately a very unethical choice. Stephanie 37:47 Hello, and welcome to The Green Screen, the bi-monthly segment in which I, Stephanie Green, walk you through the reality TV milieus in which I am currently unhealthily enmeshed. Today, I want to talk about Love is Blind. Faithful listeners of The Green Screen will recall that I talked about the disastrous Denver season of this show in November of last year. Since we're all by now familiar with the Love is Blind oeuvre, I'll spare you a rehash of the show's bonkers premise or an exhaustive list of the phrases that these dummies rely upon in conversation and that, in my opinion, should be made illegal. These phrases include but are not limited to, let's go, and I love that. I also won't go on and on about these people's unfailingly shallow understandings of what a marriage entails or how delusional they are about what it's like to be a parent or who among them would, in fact, make a great mom. Instead, I'll dive right into the couples and let you, the listener, decide whether or not to waste, I mean invest, 13 plus hours of your one wild and precious life on this show. Stephanie 38:50 This season of Love is Blind takes place in the state that spawned Nick Lachey, arguably the middest state in the Union, Ohio. I have spent time in Ohio, having grown up in its far superior neighbor, Michigan, and the less said about Ohio, the better. That said, this season did deliver some great drama, so I guess I have to give Ohio props for at least producing these goofballs. Let's get into the couples, and as a reminder, I will not be spoiling the outcomes of any of these couples, as tempting as it is, because I take my ethical duties as a recapper very seriously. You're welcome. Stephanie 39:22 Going in rough order of least offensive to, again, should be in jail, let's start with this season's sweethearts, Christine and Vic. These two are so normal and boring and, dare I say, lovely, that there is nothing much to say about them. But it does feel important to mention that Vic, the one suitable man from this cast, is not actually from Ohio. Stephanie 39:43 Next, we have Mike and Emma. He is a caricature of an Italian-American mama's boy whose whole personality is wanting kids, and she's a gorgeous but insecure 27-year-old who's on the fence about motherhood because she's an adoptee with a history of childhood health trauma. They seem to have quite literally nothing in common, but since they're not actively horrible to each other, they've managed to eke their way into the number two slot. Okay, number three, Bree and Connor. She's a brash Michigan transplant who wants a man to quote out alpha her, whatever that means, and whose idea of flirty banter is continual negging. And he's a mild-mannered bump on a log whose job is literally selling dumpsters. A match made in heaven. Stephanie 40:26 Okay, number four, Brittany and Devante. She's hot, and he looks like an overcooked noodle, and yet he's not interested in her because she is, in fact, a full-on psycho who pre-bought a wedding dress before coming on this show. As is so often the case, I'm team no one on this one, and in general. Number five, Amber and Jordan. Amber is a big-haired nurse practitioner who loves to drink, and Jordan is a good old boy who loves to eat, and on the surface, they seem fine, I guess, but here's the issue. Amber is a divorced mother to a seven-year-old daughter. I think it's unethical for parents of young children to go on this show, period, but Amber goes one step further and puts her child on camera. Making things even worse, she and Jordan live an hour apart and can't agree on where to live, and Amber is entertaining the idea of pulling her daughter out of school and relocating her to a city where she'll be away from her friends and, not for nothing, her actual father. Unforgivable. Stephanie 41:24 Okay, number six, Alex and Ashley. Alex looks like a blurry Ben Affleck and talks like a chatbot that was trained on a collection of essays written by the dumbest kid at your high school. He speaks in this weird, corporatized word salad that is utterly devoid of content in hopes that he can distract from the fact that he's an unemployed former soccer coach slash day trader who lives a, quote, nomadic lifestyle, which is code for does not have housing. Meanwhile, while Ashley's tall and blonde and annoyingly insecure, but at least has a job. Watching these two phonies try to gaslight each other is a certain kind of treat, so take that for what it's worth. Finally, bringing up the rear are Chris and Jess. Jess is an accomplished infectious disease doc with distractingly long fake eyelashes, and Chris is a smarmy little gnome who uses, without irony, the verb fornicate and takes issue with Jess's physique, claiming he wants someone who, quote, does Pilates. That's right. Chris is this season's shake, a weaselly little man with delusions of grandeur who always thinks he can do better. For the record, he cannot. Definitely looking forward to seeing this utter gremlin savaged at the reunion, though. So I can't recommend that you watch Love is Blind because I don't want that on my conscience. But if you're on the fence and need a pleasant source of brain rot, it's right there waiting for you on Netflix. Stephanie 42:47 And look, sorry I was so hard on Ohio. We need a handful of mediocre states to round out this great nation, and Ohio certainly exists. Well, until next time, this has been The Green Screen. Dave 43:09 Welcome in, Grandpaws. This is Extra Credit Time. If you want to bump up that pledge, get the whole episode. We've got about 40 minutes behind us that you can enjoy. Go to extrahotgreat.com slash club. Follow that link and you'll be set. Glad you're here right now. We've got Survivalist this week. I'm asking, what three items are you bringing to Survivor that they probably don't allow at the moment onto the show? You cannot bring something that would translate into automatic win like say a machine gun all right tara what is your first. Tara 43:40 Okay well i sort of made two lists because i really thought about what i would actually bring and then i thought you would be mad and say that was no fun because you would be like i brought my smurf poster or something but i could never possibly anticipate you know what i'm saying wait. Dave 43:56 What kind of smurf what's on the poster is this something you had in your in your bedroom. Tara 44:00 No, it's just something that randomly came to mind. Dave 44:04 Is it a sexy pinup of Smurfette on the side of a bomber? Tara 44:07 I mean, that's up to you. There probably are such things. Anyway, so I have a for real list or a for fun list. So what did you do? Dave 44:15 Oh, what did I do? I just have three. Tara 44:17 Okay. Dave 44:17 As asked by myself. Tara 44:19 Yes, right. Dave 44:19 And they're all stupid, so. Tara 44:21 Oh, okay. Well, let me quickly do my for real ones then. Dave 44:24 Okay. Tara 44:24 Which are Infinite Jest, the book, which I would have as distraction. And then as I get further in reading it for toilet paper. Dave 44:32 Oh, okay. And kindling. Tara 44:33 And kindling. A pillow. I really have a hard time sleeping if the pillow is bad, especially in hotels. This is a problem because they always have feather pillows and I hate them. Dave 44:41 But after a day, that pillow would be A, filthy, and like B, moist. Tara 44:46 I would also be filthy and moist, so I'm willing to take that choice. Dave 44:49 Okay. Tara 44:50 That risk, I guess. Dave 44:51 Birds of a feather. Tara 44:52 Yeah. And finally, extra bobby pins, because if my hair is in my face, I can't perform in challenges. Dave 44:59 You don't think you're allowed bobby pins? Tara 45:01 No. I bet they make you use twine or something that comes off a package. Dave 45:05 Yeah. Tara 45:05 I don't think you're allowed that. All right. I think they probably give you, if you're on prescription drugs, they give it to the onset medic or whatever to dole out as you need them. And I believe I read at some point they give them sunscreen now so they don't get skin cancer. But I think that's it. Dave 45:20 Yeah. Do you think Infinite Jest, if you threw in the fire, would refuse to burn? Tara 45:24 I kind of do. Dave 45:25 Yeah. Tara 45:25 I mean, one page at a time, but as a bulk item, it's like... Dave 45:28 No, I think any part of it you put in, the flame turns green and you hear this voice saying, no, read me. All right. What's your first real stupid answer? Tara 45:37 My first real stupid answer is a voice recorder and extra batteries so that I could covertly tape people when they were talking shit and then use it as evidence against them. Dave 45:47 Ooh, that's a good one. Mine is to have walk-on music every time I enter a scene. It's Dave. Tara 45:58 Yes. Dave 46:02 I mean, it's something I want in real life all the time. But if I can swing it on Survivor, I'd be pretty happy about that. Tara 46:09 What would it take for me to get you to walk into the Oscar party on Sunday with a whole bunch of people you don't know playing that on your phone? Dave 46:19 Yeah, if I knew the people, I would absolutely do it. But I don't want to be that person for the rest of the thing. Nobody's making eye contact. I'm like, should I do it again? will it be funny if I do it a second time? Or is everyone just going to leave and be creeped out? They're going to be leaving creeped out. Tara 46:31 Yep. Dave 46:31 They're going to be creeped out and leave. Tara 46:33 My next ridiculous item is a battery-powered fridge. This is something that really exists. And it would be for, you know, preserving. Dave 46:41 I'm familiar with fridges. Tara 46:43 I know. You know what a fridge is. I'm saying you can get them that are battery-powered. Dave 46:46 Yeah. How many AAAs do you have to put in a fridge? 96. Jesus Christ, he's going to be here all day. And then he realized after the 96 one, fuck, I put them all in backwards. Tara 46:57 I think it would make me very valuable at camp if I'm like, you vote me out. You're voting out the fridge, too. And that means you can't preserve the fruit that you've gathered. Dave 47:06 You try to be good, hard survivor men, but refrigerators so-so filled with batteries. So-so filled with batteries. Tara 47:13 Yeah. And also when you get a food reward, you could be like, let's just have half of this and put the rest in the fridge. Dave 47:19 So now you're food police. That's really going to endear you to everybody. Tara 47:22 No, I wouldn't police it. Dave 47:24 No, no, no, no, no. Tara 47:24 I would just suggest it. Dave 47:25 Tiny bites. Tara 47:28 All right, what's your next one? Dave 47:41 My next one is a boxing glove on a scissor arm, aka the extendo punch. And I want to use it at Tribal Council to repeatedly but gently tap people when they're speaking. And then when everybody goes up for the vote, because they're holding the sign of who they voted for up to the camera and they don't have much leverage, that's when I hit them in the back and they sort of lose their balance as they're trying to explain why they're voting out this person. I think that would be funny and I would love to see it. This is how I'm going to jazz up Survivor. Not more rules, not more crazy challenges with like scaffolding and shit. No, it's just going to be getting punched by a boxing glove. Tara 48:14 No hidden immunity either, the hidden immunity necklace, the immunity tiara. Dave 48:19 What's he doing in the ocean? Oh, Dave's fishing. And then I'm like, boing, boing, trying to get fish in the ocean. I do catch one eventually. You know, somebody's like, ah, does anybody have a spoon to mix up this thing I'm making a pot? Allow me. Boing, boing. Mixed well. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, boxing glove. What's your third? Tara 48:39 I'm going to bring an apple slicer because just because we're in the wilderness doesn't mean you can't live elegantly. No, my actual third one was five-hour energy. Dave 48:47 Okay. Do you think there's a lot of apple trees in the tropics? Tara 48:50 No, but I think it would be fun to do that with oranges or whatever there is. Pineapple. Dave 48:54 Okay. All right. Tara 48:56 What's yours? Dave 49:08 My last one is a big bag of tourist tiki idols that like a big bag, like 30 or 40. So I can leave tiki idols all over the place and eventually have everybody in tribal council think they have the immunity idol on mass. Tara 49:21 Yes. Dave 49:22 That'd be pretty funny. Tara 49:23 That's pretty good. Dave 49:24 All right. Bye bye now. Tara 49:26 Bye. Dave 49:30 Well guys, that is it for another episode of extra, extra hot great. We scarfed down some Scarpetta before scarfing your burning ass EASG questions like, what food land are you living in and how are you traveling across the country with the ER doctors? Sean scarfed up a tiny cannon for his Testino scarfing commercial parody. We scarf-lela braided those who work quite the best and worst of the scarf and scarfed all up with a scarfing look at scarves we'd like to scarf. Next up, want to guess, Tara? Tara 50:01 Scarfy duty. Dave 50:02 Scarf! Remember, I am Scarf, and on behalf of Scarf... Tara 50:06 Uh, what are you angry for? Dave 50:08 And the absent Scarf D. Scarf. Thanks for listening. We'll Scarf you next time, right here on Extra, Extra Hot. Great.